Australia has slipped in the world happiness rankings

The 2018 World Happiness Report shows Australia swapping positions with Sweden which is now in 9th place and Australia at 10th.

Finland is in first place followed by Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Canada and then New Zealand at 8th.

However, there’s not a big difference between the top 10. They are essentially the same but with a little position swapping.

Four different countries have held top spot in the four most recent reports: Denmark, Switzerland, Norway and now Finland.

All the top countries have high values for the six variables found to support well-being: income, healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom, trust and generosity.

The overall rankings of country happiness are based on the pooled results from Gallup World Poll surveys from 2015-2017.

Here are the rankings for the top 20 countries, using the colour-coded happiness variables:

Source; World Happiness Report

This year’s happiness report looked at migration and how this affected wellbeing.

The 10 happiest countries have foreign-born population shares averaging 17.2%, about twice that for the world as a whole.

For the top five countries, four of which have held the first-place position within the past five years, the average 2015 share of the foreign-born in the resident population is 14.3%, well above the world average.

For the countries in 6th to 10th positions, the average foreign-born share is 20%, the highest Australia at 28%.

Ranking the most-accepting countries for migrants, Australia ranks 7th in the world, as this chart shows:

The World Happiness Report was written by a group of independent experts acting in their personal capacities.